From pop3 to IMAP

[#1]

thinking of changing some family members accounts so they can access email from vartious machines. Can I just change the setting for the accounts to the IMAP server or will this result in loss off emails already downloaded and stored in outlooks PST when it synchronises with the server?
Anything else I should look out for?
TIA
PT

[#2]

you have a choice in POP3 and IMAP to leave the mail on the server, POP3 normally downloads the mail from the server onto the local machine, thus it is not lookable on other machines. 
IMAP leaves the mail on the server and anyone logging on can read all mail.  There is a finite limit to the amount that can be left on the server, too much and it gets very slow

[#3]

You can't normally change the account settings from POP3 to IMAP you have to generate a new account. As you are generating a new account you will not lose any email which you have downloaded previously. After you have generated theIMAP account and created folders you can if you wish pick and drop emails from the POP3 account to an IMAP folder within Outlook (or which other email client you are using) and these will automatically be uploaded to the email server.

[#4]

of course you can you just change the incomming server from mail to imap, when I am away from home, using my netbook I use IMAP to look at the e-mail and then when back home download it with OE and pop3
Also as my SWMBO is not PC Savy i check here mail first on IMAP, delete the obvious rubbish from here Weight Watcher "friends" then she looks at the rest
If you use thunderbird it automatically gets the imap setting from your pop3 account when you enter the existing account name

[#5]

The only thing I've noticed about using IMAP and POP3 is that after deleting emails using IMAP on my Ipod, I often find that they still download, when I sync my desktop usiing POP3.  It can be annoying after I've deleted a load of stuff, expressly to prevent me downloading them.
John

[#6]

I have found that the PN server is a bit slow at that, I generally compact the server from the File menu when I want to download the clean files

[#7]

on the matter of setting up accounts, if you can control your family, you can give each member there own account and direct mail to that with account rules, bit difficult as you would have to do it for all the odd ball mails as well.
Then just let them have an IMAP program that looks at their box, with windows and user accounts, you could have a separate Thunderbird for each user, My SWMBO only has her account on OE, none of the others

[#8]

Quote from: pierre_pierre

of course you can you just change the incomming server from mail to imap, when I am away from home, using my netbook I use IMAP to look at the e-mail and then when back home download it with OE and pop3

Sorry but I can't see the point using IMAP and POP3 togather for the same account. The reason to use IMAP is that emails stay on the server so when using multiple PC 's you have the full access to all emails. If you use POP3 with the default settings then emails are deleted when downloaded so are lost when accesses the server using another PC. If you change the default POP3 settings to leave a copy on the server  you may as well use IMAP. Also with POP3  you can only access the Inbox folder and none of the other IMAP folders so again losing another benefit.
If you are worried about how much you can leave on PN servers you can pick and drop emails /folders from the imap  accout to a dummy account in you email client. In most case the dummy account would be the old POP3 account as this would/should be disabled after setting up the IMAP acount. This is the method that I use so the day to day all my PC's use IMAP, which also mean that I can access the account by webmail and the emails are sorted in folders. Then every so often I move them from the server into  my main PC  by using pick and drop

[#9]

Both Hulls and my self have given valid reasons for using the same account on Pop3 and Imap, when away from home we use Imap to leave it on the server, when back home, we can if we desire download it to the home PC using in my case OE.  you dont have to set up separate accounts for that

[#10]

and another point, Webmail and IMAP are effectively the same beast, reading ISP based servers tthat store e-mail

[#11]

IMAP handle folders better. For you to be able to see emails on your POP3  account you have to leave them in the inbox when view and read using IMAP. If you move them into a sub folder using POP3 you will not be able to see them in IMAP. When you send an email using POP3 you will not see the sent email when using IMAP as the SENT folder in POP3 is a local folder unlike in IMAP when it's a server folder. I know that when I view my email account on any PC using IMAP I will see all received and sent emails that I have decided to leave on the server nicely filed away in folders. This is done by setting up one account on each PC. Then on my main PC there is the default Outlook Personal Folder which I use for several IMAP accounts as an archived store.

[#12]

Thanks all, very useful.
I have set up the wife and kids accounts on IMAP now so they can grab any PC available in the house. It works well for them. For some reason I still prefer to use pop3 and keep all my email on my PC (which none of that rabble ar allowed accces to) and use webmail to check for new mail on my phone etc when out and about or copy my pst over to the lappy if away for extended periods - maybe I will trust IMAP one day!
one thing, i presume its by design that the IMAP account creates a new PST in OL2007 and you can't use the default PST inbox/outbox,etc?
Jon